Drawing Blanks
by Ann-Stripes
Summary: She desperatly tries to make Simon remember, to dismay of Magnus, who isn't up for her plan at all. Clary will bring Simon to ascend, no matter the cost, but she finds out that some matters should be better off left alone. An alternative ending to the last book.


_I love Simon to bits, but am not satisfied at all with how things turned out for him even though I saw it coming from like 100 pages into the book (maybe that's the reason?). Not completely my take on the ending, but _a _take on the ending. _

_There will be a bit of drama. I don't know how big I'll make this fic (could be that this is the only chapter I'll be posting. I'm very good at that: dropping stories...). I do have ideas though and I could go on for a while, I just don't know if I will. Also, the ending will maybe not be a happy one. I can't bear myself to think of a happy ending for Simon! :D_

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_**1.  
The Newsman  
**_-*T.M.I*-

It had been three weeks since he had seen Simon Lewis for the last time. By then, almost everybody who knew of him had heard of the news as Simon was quite the celebrity in the Shadow world for his unique '_Daylighter_' status. Those who didn't were either completely closed off from the Shadow world, weren't part of it, or would hear soon enough through local newspapers or friends.

He was, of course, part of the group who knew first, as he had somewhat been his close acquaintance through the months and had watched his father take away the boy's memories himself.

It was obvious that he should be one of the most important spokesperson to spread the news in close conferences, seeing as he mingled the most with the common people and could gossip like no other without giving away unfounded information. That much he owed Clary and the boy.

He worked hard and partied every night and so it came to be that at the end of the week not a single person would bother Simon anymore with simple, but for him confusing questions. This didn't count for Magnus, however.

When Magnus wearily walked to Taki's to get a good cup of latte, he was approached by an unsightly looking man whose shaggy hair grew everywhere. His werewolf teeth were too big for his mouth and he sputtered spit everywhere when he spoke. He was also very scantily dressed.

"Man, have you heard the news 'bout that vampire kid?" the man said to him as if he were the first one to blessed with the message of god to tell everybody. Magnus brushed some spit off his jacket with his naked finger.

"I could hardly call it news," he told the man and kept on walking.

"Oh, so you _have_ heard. You seen him lately?" The werewolf's posture was horrible and he hobbled bend over after him. "Used to see him all the time. Aren't you that Bane guy?"

"If you could leave me alone, please?" were Magnus' final words and he walked off, leaving the man alone to bother some other already informed people.

The fact was that he didn't want to see him. Especially not 'lately'.

Courtesy of Clary, who was both heartbroken and round-out depressing to be around with, they had followed the boy around for some days. If it weren't for putting her unrest and worry at ease, Magnus wouldn't think twice about going with her. After some thought he found that it would be best if he did come with her; Many things could go wrong if she didn't have the right persons around who kept an eye on her. After all, there was a huge possibility of her messing up and dragging the poor boy down into their world again, which he couldn't allow, because no matter how much she loved the boy, here is not the place where he belonged.

The first time they had stalked around trees and followed Simon's heels like lapdogs. This was not completely necessary as they each had devices for invisibility but was, again, to put Clary's mind at ease. Her monster boyfriend made some snarky remarks about it as was prominent to his character, but she made no response to him, opposite of beautiful Alexander, who gave him glares and Isabelle, who smacked him on his head.

Clary, from the beginning, only had eyes for her friend and traced every move he made with a contempt look on her face. Jace went quiet when he saw that she didn't react to his antics and settled for watching too.

For the first time since he knew Simon there was absolute comfort around him. He sat relaxed with his arms crossed and legs apart on a bench in the park together with his friends from the band. A bunch of paper stacks, pencils, and noteblocks lay outspread on the table before them, possibly for music writing purposes.

Not a muscle was tensed or waiting for a spontaneous action. He had laughed carefree at the joke his friend made. He made no glances to the side as if he was expecting something to pop out any moment, a habit Mangus thought Simon was already in possession of naturally.

For the first time he resented himself for making fun of Simon. He held a hand up to his mouth ashamed. He could be so stupid sometimes.

With a jolt, Clary stood up from her sitting place, much to the distraught of her boyfriend, who reacted with shocked eyes. Her hands were balled into fists and with firm steps she made way to the boys on the bench. She stopped in front of the table and looked right into her friend's brown eyes, Simon and his band unaware of her presence.

Only Isabelle thought of calling after her.

"Clary, don't!" she said, unable to shout something more cogent, proved futile anyway as Clary didn't mean to do what Isabelle thought she would.

Clary bent down over the table and leaned on her elbows, chin resting on her hands and fingers hooked on her lips, with a worn-out face. She tilted her head slightly, looking with interest at her friend talking about trivial things such as movies and music. Magnus was mistaken. It was no look of jealousy, or anger, of even confusion. She was crying.

Simon talked with wide gestures to his friends. They were deciding on a band name and while the blond boy opposite of him made a face that said contemplation but meant "that name is dumb" the one next to him nodded wildly like it was the best name they had come up with ever.

Clary smiled at the scene as if she were watching a funny movie. Magnus looked at her with unexpected worry and wonder and could imagine little what she felt, but understood it. He had said many friends goodbye too in his previous lives, though never in a way like she had.

Carefully Isabelle had come to stand next to her friend without shaking her, joining in on her ex-boyfriends life as well. Now he himself, Alexander, and Jace came from behind their 'hiding' place also. Jace followed Isabelle's example and his Alexander leaned against him with his arms crossed heaving a big sigh. They stood like that for a while waiting for a significant gesture from Clary.

The spiel seemed enough for her when Simon bended over a paper to note something down. She righted herself up and left them to their own schemes. She had stopped crying and traced around her eyes to clear her face of the wet, black mascara smudges. Isabelle -always the friend- caught her when she fell her direction, and clamped her longer arms around her very smaller frame.

"Are you going to miss him?" Alec asked next to him.

"No." Magnus had answered truthfully.

After that she wanted to visit him a couple times more. This time she didn't want anybody with her, not wanting to bother anyone with her sadness. Magnus came anyway, not sure if it was because of his compassion or to act as an safeguard between her and the boy.

A week passed and Clary found it enough. Magnus didn't hear much of her after that, but was informed through text messages that she hadn't gone again.

Meanwhile, the mundane calm had come over them again as they habituated themselves to their daily routes. Magnus had done his job and could now focus on new ones to come. The adventure had brought him more popularity and publicity than he had foreseen and noticed that his parties got bigger and more festive each night, as well as his tasks. He hoped that by the end of the next month, he would conquer all of America and be crowned the High Warlock of the U.S.A.. He thought he still had a nice outfit from Independence Day to wear for the occasion.

On this Thursday morning, three weeks since he had last seen Simon Lewis, he finally had a day off.

A teenage Taki's Diner waitress hurried over to his table to take his order, realizing he was the world- (ahem) Brooklynn underworld - famous warlock Magnus Bane. Her big brown bambi eyes stared at him in awe from beneath her blond bangs.

"Uhm!" Her pink lips pressed firm as if she had spoken too loud. Though she looked as if she expected something from him, she spoke with excitement. "Mr. Bane! What can I get you?"

Mr. Bane ordered a simple coffee. The girl nodded, noted it down and turned around, her high curly ponytail swirling with the movement. Then she seemed to think it over and twisted her body towards him again. Magnus wasn't exacly in the mood for a chat, but he raised his eyebrows and smiled politely anyway.

"Hey, uhm..." she said.

"Yes?"

"Well, uhm, weren't you friends with that Simon guy?"

"Yes." _Not really._

"Well, I just wanted to say that I think what happened is really-"

A loud voice grabbed the girl's attention.

"Macey, c'mere! There's tables waiting!" a female colleague shouted over to her from behind the counter. Macey turned to her co-worker and put a pudgy hand over her broad mouth, mumbling an: "Oh, sorry."

"One coffee coming right up." she told Magnus hastily and ran off to the bar to deliver his order.

He dropped his smile and hung low in his seat.

Magnus hated himself. Why had he come to the restaurant again? He never paid for his coffee. Besides, he looked like shit and people kept bothering him today. First with phone calls this morning, then the hobo on the streets, and now this waitress girl. Did he even have any pants on? He eyed down and confirmed he had dressed to impress, thankfully.

In no time the girl was with him again carrying a coffee pot and a happy smile.

"It's really a shame," the waitress spoke again while she poured him his coffee as if there had never been a break. Magnus gave a silent sigh. "He was a pretty cool guy, I mean for a vampire. Those guys actually bug the hell outa me, y'know? Creepy glares, hissing sometimes."

She made a face at that last bit, then stood right up and smiled with one dimple in her cheek showing.

"But he was always so polite, unlike the rest of those assholes. Did you know vampires never leave tips?"

Magnus knew. He nodded and took a sip of the cup. Then he realized that he had orderd a coffee and made a face at the bitterness.

"But he did," she continued, standing casually at his table with the pot in one hand and on her hip the other. "Must be because he is-," she put a hand not occupied with the pot on her mouth again. "oh, I'm so sorry - he _was_ a daylighter."

He gave the girl a glare. The waitress stopped her talking and gave an apologetic bow of her head, taking the hint, and hopped off again to serve the next table, beet red in her pretty round face.

Magnus stood up with his coffee, threw some pocket glitter in the air, incanted an invisibility spell, and left the building.

At home he plopped on his couch and reached over to pet Chairman Meow, but found that his beloved companion didn't rest on his usual place by the window. He had no worries, however. It wasn't unusual for his pet to escape home and prowl the streets. Meow would come around sometime again he figured. No need to waste magic on his stubborn cat.

But the lack of company bothered him slightly. Wasn't it so that on his free day he could do whatever he pleased? Right now he wanted to pet his cat!

He finished his coffee, then made the dirty cup vanish with a snap of his fingers.

He laid his head down on the arm of his sofa, his eyes directed at Chairman's empty seat.

"Come back to mew," he whispered.

His sulking did not last long as an annoying, but somehow familiar, wild banging was heard from downstairs on his front door.

"Magnus!"

Magnus closed his eyes and let out a pained moan.

"Magnus, open up please! I need to talk with you!"

Magnus stood up from his slightly uncomfortable seat with a groan, his throat and chin sore from leaning. Outside, Clary was yelling for him that what she had to talk about was important and that he had to open up.

He walked towards the front door of his apartment and pushed a button on the device on its right.

"Have you seen my cat?" he said through the microphone. Immediately the message was transferred to the intercom downstairs. The girl noticed, apparently, and stopped trying to get his attention.

It took a moment for Clary to react on the other side. Magnus leaned against the wall and waited while rubbing his sore throat.

"Magnus, can you please open the door?" she said after fumbleing a bit with the buttons (Magnus heard every beep the intercom had).

He pushed a button. A loud, droning tone was heard.

"Come on in," he answered her.

He heard the door rattleing downstairs and footsteps fading away. Then they came back in striding stomps and a rushed Clary busted through the door.

He moved a hand through his unkempt hair. She did through hers too.

"Did you lose your cat?" she asked, slightly out of breath while still holding the doorknob.

"Yeah," he answered.

"Not seen him, but can you help me please?" Clary began, completely ignoring his deprivation of cat, and closed the door. " I really need to..." and then she breathed even heavier. "I need..."

And then he noticed her blood streaked eyes and the red scratches on her throat and chest as if she had tried to rub, whatever it was that rested inside of her, away. Clary stopped her pleading and sighted. She put a hand on her forehead and streaked away the strands of hair that were plastered with sweat.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Whatever she had to say, it looked like she was deliberating if she had not made the wrong choice by coming to him, and he had a feeling what it was about.

"Sit down, Clary." Magnus told her with surprising gentleness. Maybe it was the way she struggled finding her words, or her completely dragged appearance with her hair being a big orange storm around her head and her just-fished-this-out-of-the-laundry-basket clothes who were draped over her little body like rags.

She sat down on his couch and at once her body was leaden with fatigue. Magnus sat opposite of her on his coffee table. She rubbed her fingers over her lids and kept them there. Magnus watched her.

"Do you want a magic lotion for that magical hair disaster?" he said finally. "If you don't have the money you can pay me back later."

This caught her attention and she removed her fingers from her eyes. "Do I really look that horrible?"

"Have you seen Amy Whinehouse performing on her final concert?" She shook her head and said no. "Well, it was pretty terrible and that's the amount of terrible you look too." _Not to mention sad__1__,_ he added as an afterthought.

She held her head in her hands. "Isabelle and I were supposed to go out tonight together. I tried to style my hair." A lock of red knots was held between her thumb and finger for vivification of her drama, and she raised her head. She let the strand fall. "And it's only twelve am!" She exclaimed this disheartened and with a slight pitch in her voice. Her head fell back on her arms.

Magnus shifted in his seat, not actually all to eager to be her shoulder to cry on. But he had to do something now. He couldn't let her burst out in tears for real.

"Why did you rush head over heals into my apartment, Clary?"

"I just thought I had an idea," she pushed her fingers through her hair.

"You thought you had an idea?"

"Yes, I mean... I guess I had sorta an idea, but-"

"But?"

She gave him an annoyed look and a hand waving gesture. "Shut it," she said, and rubbed her forehead in concentration. "It was a stupid idea anyway. I shouldn't have come to you, I know what your opinion about the thing is anyway."

So it_ was _about Simon Lewis.

"Do you want some tea?" He asked her. She nodded.

He rubbed his fingers with his thumb, making flicks of blue appear over them. In a blink he held a hot cup of kava. As he handed her the cup, she thanked him.

"Why did you come to me, Clary?" Magnus asked again, bobbing off his table to sit next to her. The couch bounced a bit beneath him, making the cup almost spill. Clary made an alarmed face and held the cup with care. "Surely I couldn't be your first pick. Don't you have a lovable and charming boyfriend to go to who will support you in these dire times?"

Carefully she took a sip and rested her back against the couch. "I guess I just wanted a familiar face," she spoke, at last calmed down enough to not talk hasty or with stutters. She brought the cup to her mouth again.

He raised an eyebrow. "Familiar? Exacly how am I a familiar face?"

She rubbed her hands over the cup, not for warmth but out of nervousness. "That spell you put on me was lifted when the silent brothers looked into my mind. Lately I've been remembering more and more things about you, and myself for that matter. Technically, I've known you longer than I've known Jace." She made a half smile. "Longer than Simon, actually." She drank from the tea again.

Magnus could have almost forgotten his magic. He guessed it made sense for her to remember only after all these months. You don't recover lost memories that have been gone for years that easily. Sure, she might not remember the things from when she was three, but her second meeting with him from when she was five must have come up once or twice already. There was also the fact that when she started to visit more frequently, he got to know her a little better and vise versa. Tough, he hoped those memories would remain vague. He got embarrassed just thinking about them.

But, she was wrong about one bit; the spell wasn't lifted. As the date of her visit with him came near and passed without his involvement, it had gradually weakened. With a little help on her side and the chronic exposition to the Shadow World, she practically broke a large portion of his magic herself that kept her memories hidden and her inner eye closed. What a waste.

"I see," he spoke. "And you haven't told your crew about this idea of yours yet? You went straight to me, your old family friend? I'm honored." He put a hand on his chest for this honor and smiled. Clary rolled her eyes.

"I wanted to make Simon a Shadowhunter."

Magnus widened his eyes in surprise, though he couldn't really have been. After all, it was logic for her to want that. By ascending there would be a big chance Simon would get his memories back, getting Clary back. "I guess I should've seen that one coming," he mumbled.

Clary was right and she did know what his stance was on the matter. The biggest fact was that Simon might not actually be able to remember not even if he ascended, let alone wanting it.

"Clary, there's no way that-"

"Yeah, yeah. I know, I know." She smiled softly with her eyebrows furrowed, sad over the honest truth. "I thought we could try. Maybe if we would hang around him long enough his memories would return, just like mine did."

"But yours was a spell," Magnus corrected. "I had to put a spell on you every two years. Simon doesn't have that. My- I mean- this is Asmodeus we are talking about, Clary. He is a billion times stronger and more powerful than I am, even if you think the opposite. If he doesn't have to replace an extremely difficult spell every two years he has no problem keeping those memories of Simon for eternity. This will not simply end if we were to hang around him all the time. Not even if we opened his inner eye."

The girl stared right with those green eyes into his slanted ones as if she could not accept what she was hearing. The tea cup was left alone on the table and she had clenched her hands into the fabric of her jeans. Then, with the fortitude she had saved, she stood up. Her eyes were fixed right into his.

"You don't know that," she spoke with such calm, yet the force of her growl caught Magnus off guard. "How would you know," she said again, not a question. It was an accusation and she was wrong.

He kept his calm posture on the seat. "Because I have met the man, and I know what he can and can't do." The charitable face he had pulled a minute ago was gone. "If you cannot accept this reality, girl, where in your friend has gone and made himself a better one then you should go and cry out on your boyfriend's shoulder who _does_ accept this nonsense, because I am not up for this today."

Then he stood up. It is not often that he was irked, but Clary had just pulled the line.

"For gods sake, he isn't dead!" and this was the last line he could cross for Clary. She began to cry. A series of sniffles came from her and she looked away from him. All her anger vanished and her pent up tears were forming in her already bloodshot eyes, which she hurriedly tried to whimper away with her lashes. She put a hand up to her mouth and pressed her lips to it, stifling the sobs.

Magnus, unsure what to do, looked around, put his hands on his sides, and sighted. Clary sat down and apologized, still crying.

Him shadowing over her felt too dictating, so he sat opposite of her on the glass coffee table. Oh, he hadn't meant to scare her that much.

"We'll go next week," he said softly when Clary's crying abated. She whispered a thank you finally her final sniffles. He quickly added: "Don't be mistaken, though. I still think this won't work."

But no matter what arguments and excuses he said after that, Clary wore a smile on her face for the rest of the week until Tuesday; the day on which Magnus had promised she would finally see her best friend again.

Now if only she had been contempt with that.

_**end of chapter**_

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_1. Sorry for all the Amy Whinehouse fans out here! I didn't mean it in a degrading way (only a bit). Amy Whinehouse's last performance wasn't sad in a pathetic way, it was sad because of what was going on was_ _sad. I tried to write Clary in that part as mourning. Also looking like shit. _

_A/n:_

_No matter what you guys think of Magnus and no matter how much I adore him, I think Magnus Bane is not a likeable person irl if you would get to know him to the core. In fact, I think his arrogance and selfishness often gets mistaken for heroism. _

_Alot of things he does and the decisions he makes happen just in the right time. This causes the reader and his fellow characters to think he does it for everybody's and/or their own best will while he is actually just either pushing his luck, hopping around the truth, avoiding his mistakes, or completely oblivious or ignorant to the situation and other people, might it be intentional or not. _

_Honestly, Cassie, did you base Magnus Bane of a literal cat? Is that what he is? Just a big cat doing whatever he feels like doing? I finally understand. _

_Thank you for reading. Please leave a review if you can!_


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